The word "incunabula" is Latin, a neuter plural meaning "swaddling clothes" or "cradle." In book history, it is used to refer to all books printed with metal type from the beginning of Gutenberg's movable type printing press, around 1455, to the end of 1500. This is an arbitrary but traditional date that marks the end of the "infancy" of printing, as it rapidly spread to centers across Europe and into the Americas. Known as "incunables" in Spanish and French (and often in English), "incunaboli" in Italian, and "incunábulos" in Portuguese, these earliest of printed books have long been of great interest to librarians, book collectors, and historians of the book.
What Are Incunabula?, The University of Chicago Library
Instrument with volvelles from Regiomontanus: Kalendarium by University of Glasgow Library
Via Flickr:
Regiomontanus, Joannes: Kalendarium. Venice: Erhardus Ratdolt, 1482. An instrument with volvelles, or paper wheels, which can be manipulated to show the motion of the moon ([29v]). Sp Coll BD7-f.13 (item 1 of 4 bound together).
oh hello! This little hand-drawn fish is half of the pisces constellation, as seen printed here in the first book to contain printed illustrations of the constellations (1485 edition).
Jozef Van Wissem — New Lute Music for Film (Incunabulum)
(Photo by Renaud Monfourny)
NEW LUTE MUSIC FOR FILM by JOZEF VAN WISSEM
In recent years things have ramped up for lutenist Jozef Van Wissem. He’s grown his audience in Eastern Europe to the point where he keeps a residence in Poland. There have been cinematic and sonic collaborations with Domingo Garcia-Huidobro, Zola Jesus and Jim Jarmusch, and business dalliances with ATP Recordings, Sacred Bones, Crammed Discs and Consouling Sounds. But for this concert recording, made early in 2017 at the Meet Factory in Prague, Van Wissem is back to releasing his music on his own Incunabulum imprint.
It never hurts to be able to fall back on your own resources, and this record wears its practicality quite literally on its sleeve. New Lute Music For Film sets you up with a few tunes from Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive that didn’t make it to the soundtrack CD, while its subtitle — Beyond Props — not only advertises Van Wissem’s availability to make more movie music, it tells you want kind of projects he wants. Having not only played on Only Lovers Left Alive soundtrack but also schooled actor Tom Hiddleston in lute technique, he wants to be more than a prop. If you’ll pardon the metaphorical shift, Van Wissem’s music is strong enough to be a main ingredient, not just a spice.
The album catalogs his current strengths. It opens with a four-piece, fifteen and a half minute long sequence (billed as four separate tracks on the CD’s sleeve but correctly identified on the record’s Bandcamp page) that shows how years of road dogging have elevated his technique. His tone has never projected more boldly, and his dissonances have never been more pungent. He’s never walked the rigorous stair-steps of his palindromic compositions with more ease, and he’s equally sure-footed transitioning from tune to tune. Even his singing, never his strong suit, sounds more confident. It’s worth remembering that Van Wissem was active on Holland’s punk scene before he turned to the lute, and he applies punk’s phlegmy bluntness to lyrics that honor the challenge of being an authentic individual and promote the redemptive power of love.
